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From comedy to action hero, actor John Krasinski is a man of many talents

John Krasinski. (Image: GETTY)

Now is a great time to be John Krasinski. The man known as Jim from the US version of The Office has seen his status soar with the huge success of movie A Quiet Place, which he directed and appeared in with his wife, Emily Blunt.

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John is just as chuffed about Amazon’s 10-episode Jack Ryan series, that sees him following in the footsteps of the likes of Alec Baldwin and Harrison Ford as the CIA analyst who finds himself in danger when he uncovers a terrorist plot.

He does a mock, “How dare you?” when I mention that his Ryan is another of those average Joes he plays so well, then concurs, “He feels like a guy you can have a drink with. I loved the idea of playing a superhero whose only real superpower is using his brain and his instincts.”

It’s a dream job for John, a fan of the Tom Clancy books and the various film versions with Baldwin, Ford, Ben Affleck and Chris Pine.

But he seems even more excited about another reboot – the new big-screen Mary Poppins Returns, starring his wife Emily, 35.

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With Wendell Pierce in Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. (Image: NC)

It is, he laughs, something they will let their daughters, Hazel, four, and two-year-old Violet see, “I mean, they’re not gonna watch Jack Ryan and Emily says they can watch A Quiet Place – but not until they’re 40. But they can definitely watch Mary Poppins.”

John saw the film at a private screening.

“And it’s phenomenal,” he reveals.

“I cry at everything but 25 minutes into the movie I stood up and went to the back of the room. Emily thought it was because I didn’t like the movie but instead I was trying to find another tissue box. It’s a beautiful film, capturing the same hope and joy that the original does but in a very new, fresh way.”

If John had to pick his own fictional hero it would, he admits, be the flying nanny. “And my real-life heroes? That’s easy. It’s my parents.”

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The youngest of three boys, he recalls his childhood in Boston with his parents, Mary, a nurse, and Ronald, a doctor.

“I was as happy as you could get as a kid,” he says, his expressive features becoming even more animated.

“I was part of that generation where it was still a case of your parents opening the door and going, ‘We’ll see you at dinnertime.’

Me and my brothers would leave in the morning and go find adventures.”

The actor was raised a Catholic and his parents encouraged discussion, with the family gathering around the table after they had been to church.

“We’d talk about the sermon and my parents would ask us what we thought about it, rather than it just being whatever they told you was the truth of it. It was always about having your own opinion and developing your own sense of self.”

Seven years younger than Kevin and four years younger than Paul, he would follow his brothers everywhere. “I was like a little duckling,” he recalls.

“They’re incredible people and also incredibly different. The oldest is a bit quieter, the youngest a little more outspoken and I’m more in the middle. I can be shy or outspoken. I learnt everything from them, whether it was about first dates or going to camp for the first time. You get the playbook on life before having to go through it.”

Isn’t he also, despite being 6ft 3ins tall, the shortest of the trio? “I am, yes,” he laughs.

“It’s crazy. My brothers are 6ft 8ins and 6ft 9ins.”

John planned to become an English teacher but was drawn to the theatre programme at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island.

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He also cleaned yoga studios and worked as a reader for a casting director, which meant he read scripts opposite the auditioners.

“That’s when I realised that as an actor, 80 or 90 per cent of the job is done the minute you walk into the room,” he says.

“That taught me a lot because I know I’ve been ruled out because I’m too tall for a role, too young or too old. This is a business that’s incredibly hard because all you’re told is no until you’re eventually told yes.”

John’s big yes came when, having acted in small film and TV roles, he was cast as Jim Halpert in The Office in 2005.

John and wife Emily at the New York premiere of A Quiet Place. (Image: GETTY)

The show ran for nine years and pigeonholed him as a comedian – a mould he was finally able to break when he starred as a tough, ripped counterterrorism operative in the 2016 film 13 Hours.

It was a game-changer for the actor, who notes, “This business is sort of a prove-it industry where they can’t imagine it unless they see it. Once I worked out and took my shirt off, it was like, ‘Oh, he can do action’ whereas I could have been in many meetings going, ‘I can get in shape’ but no one would have bought it.”

“I didn’t realise how difficult it is to get in shape and how hard it is to maintain it. It’s been an amazing shift for me, both mentally and physically. I’m lucky to have a wife who’ll take me in any shape I’m in, which is nice. But certainly it helps with the kids. It means I don’t throw out my back picking them up.”

Fitness is a passion he shares with Emily, who got herself into shape for action thrillers Edge Of Tomorrow and Sicario.

He remembers being on set when she was preparing for Edge Of Tomorrow.

“I opened a door and she was doing some hand-to-hand combat, beating the hell out of this bean bag. I closed the door praying she didn’t have a nightmare that night or I’d be dead.”

The couple met in 2008, became engaged the following year and married in Italy in 2010. This year’s A Quiet Place marked the first time they had worked together and the story, about a family in deadly peril if they make a sound, spoke to John.

“It’s a love letter to my kids because it asks, ‘What would you do to protect your children?’ When I first read the original script I was holding a three-week-old baby, so it was very easy for me to connect to.”

Dividing parenting duties is “like jazz and you just jump in, rather than it being delineated as who does what when”.

Scheduling plays a big part, though. When we meet in Monte Carlo, Emily is away shooting Jungle Cruise in Hawaii.

So the last six weeks have been pretty awful for John as Emily was in London for Mary Poppins Returns and he was in Montreal, which meant getting a connecting flight through Toronto, spending 24 hours with the family, then flying back.

Jenna Fischer as Pam Beesly Halpert, John Krasinski as Jim Halpert on set of the US Office. (Image: GETTY)

But he is delighted with the Jack Ryan series. “The books are so rich and so detail oriented that there’s so much more to mine from,” he says.

“I also loved the idea that we can start at the beginning of Jack Ryan’s career in the CIA and see him in his earliest days.”

He knows that being apart from Emily and the children is part of the job.

“And there’s no two ways to say it – we’re also incredibly blessed to be in this business and to have breaks between jobs. You get to spend an intense amount of time with your kids, then not so much time with them. At the end of the day they are our first and only priority, so one of us always has them with us and the beauty is that they get to experience all these incredible places and things.”